Introduction

Darling Downs Power Station is a 630 MW combined cycle power station, the largest power station of its kind in Australia. It operates at intermediate to full baseload capacity and is one of Australia’s most efficient baseload power stations.

Darling Downs is powered by natural gas piped from Origin’s coal seam gas fields in south west Queensland and produces enough power to supply the equivalent of 400,000 homes.*References section is at the bottom

History

Origin acquired the development and regulatory approvals for a gas-fired power station in the Darling Downs region in February 2007, as a result of the acquisition of Sun Retail from the Queensland government.

On 12 June 2007, Origin committed to constructing the 630 MW gas-fired power station. Works began in August 2007 and the power station has been fully operationalsince 1 July 2010.

Location

Lower emission gas-fired power generation

Darling Downs Power Station is one of Australia’s cleanest baseload power stations in terms of carbon emissions. It has three gas turbines each with a capacity of 120 MW and a steam turbine with a capacity of 270MW, emitting less than half of the greenhouse gas than a typical coal-fired power station.

Using air-cooled technology also allows Darling Downs to use less than three per cent of the water used by a typical water-cooled coal-fired power station when generating electricity.*

Powering Darling Downs Power Station

Darling Downs Power Station is powered by natural gas from the rich source of coal seam gas (CSG) reserves held by Origin in south west Queensland, predominantly in the areas around Roma and Chinchilla.

As part of the power station’s development, Origin constructed a 205 kilometre domestic gas pipeline linking Darling Downs to the CSG fields in the region owned by Australia Pacific LNG – Origin’s 50:50 joint venture with ConocoPhillips.

For further enquiries about Darling Downs Power Station:

References

Water use
By using the latest air-cooled technology, Darling Downs will use less than three per cent of the water of a conventional water-cooled, coal-fired power station. The technology employed in the Darling Downs Power Station’s design and construction will cut annual water use to around 200 megalitres, compared to more than 8,500 megalitres for conventional water cooled coal-fired power stations.

Lower emission electricity generation
The power station is Australia’s largest combined cycle gas-fired power station and will emit less than half of the greenhouse gas of a typical water-cooled coal-fired power station of the same capacity.

One of the most efficient gas-fired baseload power stations
The Darling Downs Power Station is one of Australia’s most efficient baseload gas-fired power stations, capable of supplying enough energy to power more than 400,000 homes each day. This is based on an average QLD household which consumes 30KWh/d and a 500MW in one day. Can produce up to 630MW.